


hold onto your heart

by laskaris



Series: tales from the dreaming sea [3]
Category: Exalted
Genre: Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person, Sex Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 21:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7008208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laskaris/pseuds/laskaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 moments, 5 facts. </p><p>[a 5 Things About... story).</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold onto your heart

_some things you let go_ ;

Jewelry weighs down your neck, your ears, your wrists, your hands, is sewn to the white silk of the dress you’re wearing and wrapped around your waist . The sheer weight of the gold you’re wearing this patron’s ill-considered gifts, would have bowed the shoulders of a less-careful courtesan, the ‘lesser’ courtesans in your father’s house. But you cannot afford such slips: perfection has been ground into your bones from before you could walk, and you hold your shoulders perfectly straight even as it hurts. 

_(you long for the simplicity of flowers and ribbons, or the weightlessness of no ornaments at all.)_

Your father frowns at you in the mirror, his eyes cool, as he taps his permanently-empty opium pipe against his palm. “Give me your jewelry case.” he says, with no room for compromise in his voice, even with how languidly as he speaks and moves. Without a word, you pass him the case, and hear the chiming as he picks through the pieces still left in there. “That isn’t nearly enough gold and glitter to satisfy Sunan. Wear these as well.” 

The implied rebuke in his voice, the _you should know better_ , stings, and you lower your eyes, as he passes you more jewelry, when you’re already wearing half and more a prince’s ransom. Another bracelet for each arm, when you’re already wearing enough that when you dance, the bangles will clink together discordantly, delicate anklets, and chains to string through your hair. You don’t want to wear any of it, but you do your best to not seem ungrateful or sullen. This display is tawdry and tasteless, but so is the client, with more money than sense or good taste, but you should know how best to appeal to him and do so without complaint. You were the one who profiled Sunan to begin with, the first time he came to your father’s house not so long ago and wanted to see you dance in nothing more than gold. 

“There,” he says, voice light and begrudging, as he watches you put the jewelry on and stand up, trying to keep yourself straight.. “Stand up straight. No, not like _that_ , you move too stiffly. _Gracefully_.I taught you better than that, Lien. Prove to me that you paid attention.” 

You try to remember the feeling of how your limbs moved, weightless and unburdened, and try to recreate it, as best as you can, as you hold yourself still for his inspection. Finally, your father nods, and turns to leave the room: soon, he won’t need to check up on you before assignations anymore, but you’ve only been working for a few weeks.

“Better,” he begrudgingly allows, just before he leaves, _but still not good enough_. 

Three years later, an Exaltation and a lifetime away, you open your jewelry case, lined with the remaining gifts of patrons you never wear but haven’t already given away, and empty the pieces across a table for Sarnai’s bright, wondering eyes and the smile that she can’t hide. You’d noticed her almost magpie fascination with shiny baubles, and you can think of almost nothing better to do with the gifts you never wanted, other than selling them for Nilamkeere’s war chest, than to give them to someone who will take joy in them. 

“Ah, please, take what you want.” you tell her, and lower your own gaze. The gold glitters bright in the sun as she reaches a sword-callused hand to touch a necklace, a pair of earrings, the few things that might possibly fit her. “Please.” 

2\. _withheld truths;_

You are not lying when you tell Ram that financial matters are beyond your understanding. You’re careful enough with how you spend your money, and your lack of expensive tastes keeps you well within your budget, you’re keenly aware of how much value things have on the black market, but you don’t have any idea of investments or trade or any of the things that the older Eclipse deals with as easily as breathing. The workings of bureaucracy are nearly as incomprehensible to you as lying and court manners are to Sarnai. What need did a courtesan have to know those things, your father always said, and you held silent and never questioned him, though you know now that he was lying. 

You know your market value down to the nearest fraction of an obol, how much of an investment your years of growing up and being taught, being trained, were, but you don’t have any idea how many times over those amounts that you brought into your father’s coffers, both in money and in secrets. Your father kept you ignorant of those things: you can find secrets, investigate a trail, steal and lay down evidence before a king that condemns two traitors, but you cannot follow money or do much more than be certain that you’re not overspending your monthly stipend. There’s secrets in his books, you know, or were: his personal ledgers, his _actual_ ledgers, disappeared after his death, and you don’t know where they went, though you tried to tear apart his rooms looking for them again. Who could have possibly found or taken them? 

Your father’s secrets died with him. You still don’t know what he was after, with all his limitless ambition, or even what was contained in those ledgers. Even if you had his books, what could you have done with the information inside them? He made certain that you couldn’t understand his dealings, kept you ignorant and helpless, and you’re still trying to find your way out of that gilded, thorned cage. You don’t know if you’re strong enough to ever win yourself a single step free.

_(You don’t think you are.)_

3\. _need not to need;_

Anyone else might have teased Sarnai about her taste in men: you don’t say a word, and pretend gracefully not to notice. Ram is handsome enough, you suppose, if you absolutely had to consider the question, with more than enough wit, confidence, and charisma to make him more than merely good-looking, but you don’t really understand. You know how to manipulate others’ desire for you and how to weaponize it, use it as a tool, but you’ve never taken any time to consider your own desires or the idea of pleasure. 

You _think_ you like men: your own inclinations, not simply the fact that you saw only male clients. You know that much: this would have been easier if you had no desire at all but you know enough to know that isn’t the case. You wanted, once, you think, fading memory of violet eyes and a wry, sarcastic smile, and a clear tenor voice reading fragments of poetry from the Old Realm. A sweet, lingering kiss goodbye.

_(“But me you have forgotten, or you love some man more than me.”_

_A man who your memory cannot hold, with violet eyes, a quick smile of apology, and a slender blade, who is somehow the same man.)_

You don’t think about your desires: you have so many other things to consider and worry about, trying to make yourself useful, and spent so long suppressing them that it’s like second nature to not think about what you want. You leave the teasing up to Shakuntala, who fits herself quite neatly in as elder sister and mother figure both, say nothing to Sarnai about her entanglement save for a quiet “good luck,” and keep needing not to need. 

4\. _fragments of time;_

The fashion for bathing in Nilamkeere is much the same as home, communal and social. You prefer bathing alone, whenever possible, though your reserve paints you as eccentric, or shy, or overly modest, and pay visits to the palace bathhouse at odd, irregular hours of the morning and night, trying to choose deserted hours where no one will be around. If there aren’t already rumors about why you choose to bathe alone, there will be, or someone who thinks to be clever and try to catch you bathing. 

_(all you want is a moment to be alone, where no one can or will look at you. Away from prying eyes. All you want is a moment to be left alone)._

You are tired of being on display: you are tired of being looked at, when you’ve been shown off all your life. You can’t change the second, whether you wear your courtesan’s clinging silks or the layers of veils and robes you’d briefly considered _(and you know the allure of a mystery)_. Your beauty is legendary, the stuff of songs and stories, and even if you cover yourself in layers, people will talk and speculate. Such is one of the prices of being beautiful: you will never entirely belong to you, but you can seize what fleeting moments you can. 

5\. _a gesture of friendship;_

Shakuntala smiles, pleasantly, and puts a peeled mango on your plate. You look between her, the mango, and the ciphered paperwork sitting by your arm, and her smile only brightens. She doesn’t say anything, simply smiles in the way she does when she knows that she’s right, and you turn your attention back to the paperwork. You should be able to break the code with an hour or two of focused work, and you don’t think about the mango until you look up again and there’s another mango on your plate, a second having joined the first. 

You pick a bit at the first mango before you find yourself more work to do, a problem to investigate and courtiers to charm. You wrap up the contents and put the plate in your room, somewhere dark and cool, intending to come back for it when you have time: it’s a few hours longer than you meant to before you’re able to come back, and Shakuntala is perching on a cushion with a smile and her hands folded. 

On the table beside her sits your plate, with fresh naan and a third mango, and you pause briefly in the doorway, half-wondering if she’d looked into any of your things while you were out. It doesn’t _look_ like it, but you mislike being uncertain. 

“You missed lunch,” she chirps, cheerfully, without missing a beat. “Come, sit and eat.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _"But you have forgotten me. Or you love some man more than me." are two fragments of Sappho (129A/129B) from the _if not, winter__ translation by Anne Carson.  
>  Nilamkeere is the country ruled by Jayendra, our circle's Zenith.


End file.
